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I'm
not here to try to put down other reviewers.
There are some fine, reputable people out there writing reviews.
But ...
Recently
a colleague named Dena, who is new to Internet Marketing started
a blog and mentioned a very common scam. I kicked myself for
not posting about it earlier and asked her permission to quote
her article. She also holds the same ideas about ethics that
I do here and I was honored when she also put up a very nice
article about pickaguru. Thanks Dena.
Here is the blog link and the quote.
Dena's
blog: Making Money on the Internet for Beginners
Please
read this article from Dena carefully. It is 100% correct.
I know, I made the same mistake early on.
-----quote---
Scams - I wanted to make fast money...
Today I want to share with you how I messed up. I thought
to myself "I would like to make money on the internet".
But, my funds to start off with are very limited. I shopped
around alot before I decided to actually purchase something.
So, here I thought I was being so careful and not buying right
away. I surfed around; I read this and that. I looked into
legitimate sites like Derek Gehl and Corey Rudl's Internet
Marketing Center, The Rich Jerk and many more.
I was busy being careful and didn't want to spend hundreds
of dollars so I waited...
One fine day I was surfing around and I came across a site
which looked like a legit site which gave reviews to different
marketing gurus and various online and offline marketing programs.
The site looked so real!!! Here is the url if you want to
look at it: http://www.alwaysreview.com/internetgurus.htm
. Here's a different url with the same junk: http://www.reviewguruonline.com/.
There were many pages and on each page there was a review
of a different guru or program. At the bottom of the review
there was this little box which said something like "Click
here to see how I made my money". I was a bit suspicious
about why this supposedly objective review advertised a certain
program on every page, but somehow, when I read the sales
letter that clicking there brought me to, and I saw that I
would get an ebook for the measly price of $20 I was tempted.
This guy promised to reveal all the inside secrets blah, blah,
blah and I guess, the copy was good.
So, I bought it. By the way, the book was written by one Jason
Ryan Isaksen. As soon as I started to read it - UH OH. The
entire first chapter was devoted to telling me about his lavish
lifestyle and how wonderful it is to work from his home. He
described his and his wife's fancy clothes and cars but said
that they stopped flaunting their money because people would
come up to them for handouts. Double UH OH. From within his
book he tries to recruit people into the affiliate program
that he is with (without explaining too much about it). He
also brings you to a site where you can get your own piece
of software which becomes yours to sell. The problem is that
this is "snoopware" - something you install on your
computer to spy on which sites your family members visit.
To make a very long story short, I don't think this guy gave
me any new or interesting information except to say that content
on your site if very important (duh). Then, he said if you
really want his secrets you have to purchase one of his courses
(I believe costing either $200 or $600 - really).
I felt conned, scammed and humiliated that I actually paid
money for this book.
I wrote back to Jason and asked for a refund (I can't remember
if he promised one or not, but everyone else does) very respectfully.
He didn't even bother answering me.
And more than this, I found a few more "review"
sites about gurus etc. which all had a different look but
had THE EXACT SAME TEXT as the site I originally found. Boy,
did I feel like a dummy. I was also extremely disillusioned
to realize that you can't really trust anything that you read
on the internet. People can show you proofs of how much money
they made, pictures of their luxury houses and cars but you
can't really believe any of it.
Recently, I read somewhere that the Rich Jerk encourages his
students to make up fake review sites where they promote the
product that they are currently selling. Yuck. Some people
are willing to make their money in a totally unethical fashion.
Not for me, thank you.
I hope I can save some of you out there $20 and some heartache.
If anyone knows of any similar scams I would be happy to receive
information that I can pass on to others!!!
Till next time...
Dena
-----end quote---
Folks,
watch for this huge number of sites that has a line something
like "After looking at hundreds of programs, only one
..." or "If you want to find out how I'm making
a six-figure . . ." or something like that. Don't get
scammed. I did when I started.
Thanks
again Dena for bringing this to my attention. I was lucky.
I managed to get my money back from Isaksen by going through
his payment broker "doublepayment" I think it wa
called. But many are not so lucky.
Here
again are some of the sites Dena mentioned and a few others.
But there are many more.
----------------------------------
Don't
get scammed!
alwaysreview.com/internetgurus.htm
reviewguruonline.com/
businessprogramreviews.com
business-reviews.com
programcritique.com
federalreviews.com
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